Wancliffe Forest, for the pleasure (as an ancient inscription testifies) of "listening to the hart's bell."

Note IX.

June saw his father's overthrow-P. 140.

The rebellion against James III. was signalized by the cruel circumstance of his son's presence in the hostile army. When the king saw his own banner displayed against him, and his son in the faction of his enemies, he lost the little courage he ever possessed, fled out of the field, fell from his horse, as it started at a woman and water pitcher, and was slain, it is not well understood by whom. James IV., after the battle, passed to Stirling, and hearing the monks of the chapel royal deploring the death of his father, their founder, he was seized with deep remorse, which manifested itself in severe penances. See a following Note on Canto V. The battle of Sauchie-burn, in which James III. fell, was fought 18th June, 1488.

Note X.

Spread all the Borough-Moor below, &c.-P. 148.

The Borough, or common Moor of Edinburgh, was of very great extent, reaching from the southern walls of the city to the bottom of Braid Hills. It was anciently a forest; and, in that state, was so great a nuisance, that the inhabitants of Edinburgh had permission granted to them of building wooden galleries, projecting over the street, in order to encourage them to consume the timber; which they seem to have done very effectually. When James IV. mustered the array of the kingdom there, in 1513, the Borough-Moor was, according to Hawthornden," a field spacious, and delightful by the shade of many stately and aged oaks." Upon that, and similar occasions, the royal standard is traditionally said to have been displayed from the Hare Stane, a high stone, now built into the wall, on the left hand of the highway leading towards Braid, not far from the head of Bruntsfield-links. The Hare Stane probably derives its name from the British word Har, signifying an army.

Note XI.

O'er the pavilions flew.-P. 150.

I do not exactly know the Scottish mode of encampment in 1513, but Patten gives a curious description of that which he saw after the battle of Pinkey, in 1547:-"Here now to say somewhat of the maner of their camp: As they had no pavilions, or round houses, of any commendable compas, so wear there few other tentes with posts, as the used maner of making is; and of these few also, none of above twenty foot length, but most far under; for the most part all very sumptuously beset, (after their fashion,) for the love of France, with fleurde-lys, some of blue buckeram, some of black, and some of some other colours. These white ridges, as I call them, that, as we stood on Fauxsyde Bray, did make so great muster towards us, which I did take then to be a number of tentes, when we came, we found it a linnen drapery, of the coarser cambryk in dede, for it was all of canvas sheets, and wear the tenticles, or rather cabayns and couches of their soldiers; the which (much after the common building of their country beside) had they framed of four sticks, about an ell long a piece, whearof two fastened together at one end aloft, and the two endes beneath stuck in the ground, an ell asunder, standing in fashion like the bow of a sowes yoke; over two such bowes (one, as it were, at their head, the other at their feet) they stretched a sheet down on both sides, whereby their cabin became roofed like a ridge, but skant shut at both ends, and not very close beneath on the sides, unless their sticks were the shorter, or their wives the more liberal to lend them larger napery; howbeit, when they had lined them, and stuff'd them so thick with straw, with the weather as it was not very cold, when they wear ones couched, they wear as warm as they had been wrapt in horse's dung." Patten's Account of Somerset's Expedition.

Note XII.

in proud Scotland's royal shield

The ruddy Lion ramped in gold.-P. 151.

The well known arms of Scotland. If you will believe Boethius and Buchanan, the double tressure round the shield, mentioned p. 134., counter-fleur-de-lised, or lingued and armed azure, was first assumed by Achaius, King of Scotland, contemporary of Charlemagne, and founder of the celebrated League with France; but later antiquaries make poor Eochy or Achy little better than a sort of King of Brentford, whom old Grig (who has also swelled into Gregorious Magnus) associated with himself in the important duty of governing some part of the north-eastern coast of Scotland.

NOTES

ΤΟ

CANTO FIFTH.

Note I.

Caledonia's Queen is changed.-P. 160.

The Old Town of Edinburgh was secured on the north side by a lake, now drained, and on the south by a wall, which there was some attempt to make defensible even so late as 1745. The gates, and the greater part of the wall, have been pulled down, in the course of the late extensive and beautiful enlargement of the city. Mr. Thomas Campbell proposed to celebrate Edinburgh under the epithet here borrowed. But the "Queen of the North" has not been so fortunate as to receive from so eminent a pen the proposed distinction.

Note II.

Flinging thy white arms to the sea.-P. 161.

Since writing this line, I find I have inadvertently borrow. ed it almost verbatim, though with somewhat a different meaning, from a chorus in "Caractacus:"

Britain heard the descant bold,

She flung her white arms o'er the sea,
Proud in her leafy bosom to enfold

The freight of harmony.

Note III.

Since first, when conquering York arose,

To Henry meek she gave repose.-P. 163.

Henry VI., with his queen, his heir, and the chiefs of his family, fled to Scotland after the fatal battle of Towton. Queen Margaret certainly came to Edinburgh, though it seems doubtful whether her husband did so. Their hospitable reception called forth on Scotland the encomium of Molinet, a contemporary poet. The English people, he says,

Ung nouveau roy creerent,
Par despiteux, vouloir,
Le vieil en debouterent,
Et son legitime hoir,
Qui fuytyf alla prendre
D'Escosse le garand,

De tous siccles le mendre,

Et le plus tollerant.

Recollection des Avantures.

Note IV.

the romantic strain,

Whose Anglo-Norman tones whilere

Could win the Second Henry's ear.-P. 164.

Mr. Ellis, in his valuable Introduction to the "Specimens of Romance," has proved, by the concurring testimony of La Ravaillere, Tressan, but especially the Abbe de la Rue, that the courts of our Anglo-Norman kings, rather than those of the French monarchs, produced the birth of romance literature. Marie, soon after mentioned, compiled from Armorican originals, and translated into Norman-French, or romance language, the twelve curious Lays, of which Mr. Ellis has given us a precis in the Appendix to his introduction. The story of Blondel, the famous and faithful minstrel of Richard I., needs no commentary.